Many vehicles, especially special purpose vehicles such as police cars, fire trucks, ambulances and the like, are outfitted with auxiliary equipment that allows the vehicles to better perform their specialized tasks. Police, fire, and emergency medical services (EMS) vehicles all typically include a variety of lights and audio equipment, including but not limited to, light bars, deck and dash lights, perimeter lights, light sticks, speakers, sirens, and the like. Flashing lights and sirens may be used to warn the public that some sort of emergency is occurring and that other vehicles should make way to allow the emergency vehicle to pass or move over to avoid the scene of an accident. Emergency vehicles may also have public address systems for communicating with the public, radios, data terminals, laptops, and/or tablets (or other similar devices) used to connect to a network in order to communicate with other vehicles, a dispatch control center, a fleet management center, or some other location.
In addition to the auxiliary equipment mounted on the vehicle, emergency vehicles are generally stocked with a large amount of removable equipment. Police cruisers may carry traffic cones, flairs, reflective warning signs, first aid kits, flashlights, blankets, rifles, shot guns and more. Fire trucks and ambulances can be loaded with even more removable equipment. As these items are removable, it often occurs that these useful items are removed and never returned to the vehicle. This can result in first responders heading out into dangerous situations without a full complement of the equipment needed to meet a particular emergency.
In addition to the above, most vehicles include an on-board diagnostic (OBD) systems that may provide information about the condition of one or more parts of a vehicle. The OBD systems may provide error codes or other types of codes that may be useful to a mechanic or other person monitoring the condition of the important parts of a vehicle for maintenance and safety purposes. However, lacking from the existing technology is a means for sharing such relevant information with a central command center, such as dispatch control, a fleet management center, or some other location.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have an automated means for sharing relevant information with a central command center, such as dispatch control, a fleet management center, or some other remote location about the actions of a driver and/or control functions being executed by auxiliary equipment attached to a vehicle, and in particular, special purpose vehicles, such as police cars, fire trucks, emergency vehicles, or the like.
Additionally, it would be desirable to be able to track equipment necessary to the operations of the driver or occupants of the vehicle (e.g. traffic cones, weapons, medical gear, etc.) to determine whether the equipment is located within a vehicle or not. Furthermore, it would be desirable to have a means for notifying the dispatch control center, fleet management center, or some other location about the status of the vehicle by sharing any information obtained via the OBD systems of the vehicles.